'Here am I, as you see, like some Cincinnatus, marking out a bed for late turnips. The time has come now—and thank God for it!—when every one ought to obtain his sustenance with his own hands; it's useless to reckon on others; one must labour oneself. And it turns out that Jean Jacques Rousseau is right. Half an hour ago, my dear young gentleman, you might have seen me in a totally different position. One peasant woman, who complained of looseness—that's how they express it, but in our language, dysentery—I ... how can I express it best? I administered opium, and for another I extracted a tooth. I proposed an anæsthetic to her ... but she would not consent. All that I do gratis—anamatyer (en amateur). I'm used to it, though; you see, I'm a plebeian, homo novus—not one of the old stock, not like my spouse.... Wouldn't you like to come this way into the shade, to breathe the morning freshness a little before tea?'
Arkady went out to him.
'Welcome once again,' said Vassily Ivanovitch, raising his hand in a military salute to the greasy skull-cap which covered his head. 'You, I know, are accustomed to luxury, to amusements, but even the great ones of this world do not disdain to spend a brief space under a cottage roof.'
'Good heavens,' protested Arkady, 'as though I were one of the great ones of this world! And I'm not accustomed to luxury.'
'Pardon me, pardon me,' rejoined Vassily Ivanovitch with a polite simper. 'Though I am laid on the shelf now, I have knocked about the world too—I can tell a bird by its flight. I am something of a psychologist too in my own way, and a physiognomist. If I had not, I will venture to say, been endowed with that gift, I should have come to grief long ago; I should have stood no chance, a poor man like me. I tell you without flattery, I am sincerely delighted at the friendship I observe between you and my son. I have just seen him; he got up as he usually does—no doubt you are aware of it—very early, and went a ramble about the neighbourhood. Permit me to inquire—have you known my son long?'
'Since last winter.'
'Indeed. And permit me to question you further—but hadn't we better sit down? Permit me, as a father, to ask without reserve, What is your opinion of my Yevgeny?'
'Your son is one of the most remarkable men I have ever met,' Arkady answered emphatically.
Vassily Ivanovitch's eyes suddenly grew round, and his cheeks were suffused with a faint flush. The spade fell out of his hand.
'And so you expect,' he began ...
'I'm convinced,' Arkady put in, 'that your son has a great future before him; that he will do honour to your name. I've been certain of that ever since I first met him.'
'How ... how was that?' Vassily Ivanovitch articulated with an effort. His wide mouth was relaxed in a triumphant smile, which would not leave it.
'Would you like me to tell you how we met?'
'Yes ... and altogether....'
Arkady began to tell his tale, and to talk of Bazarov with even greater warmth, even greater enthusiasm than he had done on the evening when he danced a mazurka with Madame Odintsov.
Vassily Ivanovitch listened and listened, blinked, and rolled his handkerchief up into a ball in both his hands, cleared his throat, ruffled up his hair, and at last could stand it no longer; he bent down to Arkady and kissed him on his shoulder. 'You have made me perfectly happy,' he said, never ceasing to smile. 'I ought to tell you, I ... idolise my son; my old wife I won't speak of—we all know what mothers are!—but I dare not show my feelings before him, because he doesn't like it. He is averse to every kind of demonstration of feeling; many people even find fault with him for such firmness of character, and regard it as a proof of pride or lack of feeling, but men like him ought not to be judged by the common standard, ought they? And here, for example, many another fellow in his place would have been a constant drag on his parents; but he, would you believe it? has never from the day he was born taken a farthing more than he could help, that's God's truth!'
'He is a disinterested, honest man,' observed Arkady.
'Exactly so; he is disinterested. And I don't only idolise him, Arkady Nikolaitch, I am proud of him, and the height of my ambition is that some day there will be the following lines in his biography: "The son of a simple army-doctor, who was, however, capable of divining his greatness betimes, and spared nothing for his education ..."' The old man's voice broke.
Arkady pressed his hand.
'What do you think,' inquired Vassily Ivanovitch, after a short silence, 'will it be in the career of medicine that he will attain the celebrity you anticipate for him?'
'Of course, not in medicine, though even in that department he will be one of the leading scientific men.'
'In what then, Arkady Nikolaitch?'
'It would he hard to say now, but he will be famous.'
'He will be famous!' repeated the old man, and he sank into a reverie.
'Arina Vlasyevna sent me to call you in to tea,' announced Anfisushka, coming by with an immense dish of ripe raspberries.
Vassily Ivanovitch started. 'And will there be cooled cream for the raspberries?'
'Yes.'
'Cold now, mind! Don't stand on ceremony, Arkady Nikolaitch; take some more. How is it Yevgeny doesn't come?'
'I'm here,' was heard Bazarov's voice from Arkady's room.
Vassily Ivanovitch turned round quickly. 'Aha! you wanted to pay a visit to your friend; but you were too late, amice, and we have already had a long conversation with him. Now we must go in to tea, mother summons us. By the way, I want to have a little talk with you.'
'What about?'
'There's a peasant here; he's suffering from icterus....
'You mean jaundice?'
'Yes, a chronic and very obstinate case of icterus. I have prescribed him centaury and St. John's wort, ordered him to eat carrots, given him soda; but all that's merely palliative measures; we want some more decided treatment. Though you do laugh at medicine, I am certain you can give me practical advice. But we will talk of that later. Now come in to tea.'
Vassily Ivanovitch jumped up briskly from the garden seat, and hummed from Robert le Diable—
'The rule, the rule we set ourselves,
To live, to live for pleasure!'
'Singular vitality!' observed Bazarov, going away from the window.
It was midday. The sun was burning hot behind a thin veil of unbroken whitish clouds. Everything was hushed; there was no sound but the cocks crowing irritably at one another in the village, producing in every one who heard them a strange sense of drowsiness and ennui; and somewhere, high up in a tree-top, the incessant plaintive cheep of a young hawk. Arkady and Bazarov lay in the shade of a small haystack, putting under themselves two armfuls of dry and rustling, but still greenish and fragrant grass.
'That aspen-tree,' began Bazarov, 'reminds me of my childhood; it grows at the edge of the clay-pits where the bricks were dug, and in those days I believed firmly that that clay-pit and aspen-tree possessed a peculiar talismanic power; I never felt dull near them. I did not understand then that I was not dull, because I was a child. Well, now I'm grown up, the talisman's lost its power.'
'How long did you live here altogether?' asked Arkady.
'Two years on end; then we travelled about. We led a roving life, wandering from town to town for the most part.'
'And has this house been standing long?'
'Yes. My grandfather built it—my mother's father.'
'Who was he—your grandfather?'
'Devil knows. Some second-major. He served with Suvorov, and was always telling stories about the crossing of the Alps—inventions probably.'
'You have a portrait of Suvorov hanging in the drawing-room. I like these dear little houses like yours; they're so warm and old-fashioned; and there's always a special sort of scent about them.'